Old chalanges go away, new chalanges come ahead
This month has been a very interesting one at work. Late last month our customer canceled a large I.T project due to cost over-runs and changing business needs. This project had been very trying to design around both on a technical architecture point of view, and on a infrastructure side of things. The true scope of the project was not known at initial implementation and every time we would start to get a handle on the size of the project, it would grow. We had constant challenges working with this moving target. I think we did a good job at being flexible to meet the needs of the project, in the end due to reasons outside of us, the project is not off of our plate. It is unfortunate, as if they could have made it work, I think in the end the customer could have seen some good cost savings by moving ahead, if they could have kept the initial scope under control. In the middle of the project they acquired another company, and I think rolling that company in to the project might have contributed to some of the scope creep.
As with any large company, any time you announce you are taking a large write-off, the investors want cost control right out of the box. This has caused a complete re-focus on what I am working on. This month has been all about finding ways to save money for our customer everything from large consolidation plans that could save millions to rethinking on how we handle disks which save hundreds of dollars. It sounds like everything is on the plate. We will see in the end what works, and what does not. It is always difficult balancing the supportability of an environment with trying to reduce costs in the environment. I always tend to lean towards higher availability, and therefore more costs, and it is hard for me to change that mindset.